The Human Rights Program is excited to welcome our new intern Anjali Tadavarthy! Anjali is a senior at St. Paul Academy, and is helping us out throughout the month of May. She will attend Rhodes College in the fall to study Political Science and History.

Minnesota Human Rights Lab announces a new series, "Envisioning the Future: Advancing human rights in a time of crisis," to provide experts, practitioners, researchers, and advocates the opportunity to explore gaps in human rights protections and to identify strategies for advancing human rights long-term.

Audel Shokohzadeh is a Master of Public Policy Alumnus ('17) who graduated with a concentration in Economic Development. Audel also has a deep interest in human rights, and took a variety of human rights courses throughout his masters degree. Currently, Audel works as a Community Engagement Director at the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. We caught up with Audel to hear about his role, and how his human rights focus at the Humphrey School helped prepare him for this work.

A diverse group of University of Minnesota faculty and students spent a week at the United Nations, attending the Human Rights Council and leading meetings to advance their work on a variety of human rights projects.

A delegation of University of Minnesota faculty, researchers, students and alumni will be participating in a variety of research and outreach events at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva during the week of March 2-6, 2020. The week culminates with a public discussion by the Human Rights Lab on research ethics in faculty-student-practitioner partnerships. The visit coincides with two important sessions of the Human Rights Council and the Human Rights Committee.

Hannah Shireman is a second year Master of Human Rights student. This past summer, she worked as a Research, Education, and Advocacy Intern at The Advocates for Human Rights, working on to combat local labor trafficking. Hannah wrote about her experience here.

The Human Rights Initiative (HRI) is excited to announce our 2020 grantees! This year's funds have been awarded to the following four faculty-led interdisciplinary human rights research projects that will be implemented over the course of the next calendar year.

Karen Chonofsky is a second-year Masters of Human Rights Student. This past summer, she interned with Vital Voices, an international organization that works towards the empowerment of women around the world. Karen reflected back on this experience in the write-up.

Christopher Levesque is a graduate student working on the Immigration Court Observation Project, led by Linus Chan (Law) and Dr. Jack DeWaard (Sociology), which received a Human Rights Initiative grant. He is completing his PhD in Sociology with a focus on immigrant and refugee health. We sat down with him to discuss his research and work on the Immigration Court Observation Project.